Swette says: "Talk to your customers"

It will be no surprise to you all when I mention that TheLadders.com is also a business. We have suppliers, customers, investors, and a Board of Directors just like any other company. So in addition to the calling that drives us to make the $100k+ job hunt shorter, easier, less painful, and more efficient, we also have all the demands that go along with making our 100% growth-per-year start-up successful.

One of the greatest things about my job is working with Brian Swette (pronounced "sweetie"). Brian's the Chairman of Burger King, and formerly the COO at eBay and CMO at Pepsi. And he's a member of the Board of Directors here at TheLadders.com, a role in which he has been truly inspiring these past few years.

Brian's insights into how the team at eBay took their business from a brilliant dream to a billion-dollar multi-national phenomenon have been just priceless to us here at TheLadders.com as we hope to grow our business and change the world of high-end recruiting.

And one of the most important things, Brian insists, is that we get out and actually talk to our customers face-to-face. At eBay, they did it monthly, with the whole senior management team sitting down with customers in a different city, in a different product category, every month.

You know, that's the funny thing about being an internet business -- the internet makes it very easy to reach out to millions and millions of people, but at the same time, it makes it difficult to have conversations "belly to belly." We have no retail store where our customers can walk in and tell us what's on their minds. Sure, we've done focus groups and consumer insight studies, but what's really critical to success is the type of interactive dialogue that can only occur when you gather people together to chat. Real "boots on the ground" type stuff.

So at Brian's urging, we just completed our first "Recruiter Listening Session" this past Tuesday, December 5 th, in Ft. Lauderdale. We brought together seven recruiters from companies large and small -- Pitney Bowes, GE, Tyco Executive Search, and more. And I have to tell you, it was three of the best hours we've spent together as a management team.

We heard directly from recuiters looking to hire great candidates like you about what's working -- the amazing quality of the candidates, the cheerful helpfulness of our Recruiter Relations team, and the overall responsiveness of candidates to recruiters. And we also heard about what's not working for recruiters -- we need better search capabilities in our bio database so that recruiters can more efficiently search for candidates like you by zipcode or prior company experience, the small minority of candidates who insistently apply for jobs they are not suited for, and the occasional lack of response to niche market job postings.

What's more important, we had the opportunity to share thoughts and ideas for the future: how we can make TheLadders.com even better, so that our 25,000 friends in recruiting and HR can better target and hire our more than 1.1 million job seekers.

And those insights are going to help us make this site serve your needs even better in 2007.

So many thanks to Brian Swette for leading us to open our ears and fill our minds with the great learnings that can only be had by listening to customers. And many thanks to our seven great friends from South Florida who taught us so much in so short a time!

You know, since we're in an open, listening frame of mind this Monday, why don't I turn the mike over to some other recruiter friends that have written in these past few weeks:

I stumbled across TheLadders.com a few weeks ago as I was planning to purchase expensive job postings on popular employment sites. As a start up company, we are beginning our Marketing Phase and weren't sure what the best avenue would be for recruiting top Management. EventsLeader has been in the 'works' for 7 years. The expansive development and time spent building this business on the hit Fox show "Entrepreneurs...Reality TV" has set us up be an industry leader in the "where to go and what to do" industry, but we are nothing without the right sales team and top management. Within 2 weeks of posting our job with you, we had 5 interviews set up with top Sales Managers, all experienced and meeting our needs. Yesterday, two of these Managers were hired to run our NC & SC sales teams. THANK YOU for the service that you offer! It is refreshing beyond description to find a site that caters to and meets the needs of businesses that are looking for $100k+ talent. TheLadders.com has been instrumental in getting our Sales Team moving forward!

Amy Winstead
COO, EventsLeader.com

Congratulations to you Amy! We'll look for more great things about EventsLeader on Fox! (You know, completely random aside ? I've often thought that TheLadders.com could do a great reality show with, say, 12 of our job-seekers working together to get each other jobs. Wouldn't that be a hoot?)

I thought that you'd be interested to know that we recently hired a VP of Technology Solutions that we found through the TheLadders.com. We potentially could have paid a $75,000 retainer on this job, but instead filled it at no cost with your site.

Thank you thank you thank you! Kudos on an awesome site!

Sarah Uhland
Senior Recruiter

Fantastico Sarah!

Very impressed with the quality of applicants received!

We must have hit a nerve.

With this kind of response, we see no need of advertising on other sites in the future. I highly suspect we will fill this current position from your group of applicants.

Jim Goode
Fiberlene Filters, Inc.
Hiring Manager

Hmmmm. Great response from TheLadders.com candidates = no need to look anywhere else. Sounds like a winning formula Jim!

I love TheLadders.com! I have found great high caliber candidates from your site and the new format makes it even easier to navigate. It is professional in appearance, easy to use, and full of great candidates! Thank you for partnering in our hiring process.

Keep up the good work!

Andrew J. Johnson
Senior Recruiter/Team Lead
Superior Search, LTD.

Congratulations to you Andrew. Our Product, Technology, Design, and Q.A. teams are run by super-competent, customer-loving people who work their tails off to make your job easier. I can't say thanks enough to Marc, Kyri, Larry, Sharon, Chad, Andrew, Sonjoy, Adam, Josh and their whole teams here at TheLadders.com that strive every day, in every way, to make the $100k+ job hunt shorter, easier, more efficient, and less painful.

And with a common goal like that, among our employees, customers, recruiters and job-seekers -- and our Board -- it's no wonder that you've made us the globe's number one choice for $100k+ recruiting.

Thanks Readers! Now, let's go out and get that next $100k+ job!